Thank you Kerry for perfect analysis. I had almost lost hope here. :-)
On Monday 22 May 2017 05:38 PM, Isaac Olatunde wrote:
Greetings,
I want to agree with Gnangara that the OP has no intention to attack
the user who was cited as an example. Saying User:XYZ received a
scholarship consecutively is not an attack but a statement of fact (if
their claim was actually correct). To be honest, interpreting OP's
concern as an attack, jealousy etc. is far close to assuming good
faith. However, I don't think I'll be interested in a discussion that
focus on "Why was User:XYZ awarded a scholarship and not me?" but
would be interested in a discussion that focus on how to improve the
selection process".
As you can see, it is not easy to convince the problem even with an
example. Please don't misinterpret this. Attending Wikimania on
scholarship is not my final intention. Unlike most other users, I am
pretty anonymous, it gives me more freedom than them.
Some years back, there was a huge rift between Wikimedia and Malayalam
Language community. A large part of community stopped active
participation after that. In my own case, last year after someone told
me that some of my contributions were not that important, I didn't want
to do that. We really wish to avoid such situations. As a small
community, every user is important.
I really didn't intend to be rude or bully. English is just not my
native language.
Regards,
Isaac (/who has never received a scholarship or apply for one this year)
/
/
/
On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Peter Southwood
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
Fair comment, and actionable suggestions.
P
*From:*Wikimania-l [mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>] *On Behalf Of
*Kerry Raymond
*Sent:* Monday, 22 May 2017 4:57 AM
*To:* 'Wikimania general list (open subscription)'
*Subject:* Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons
every year
This observation has been made by a few people (some of them
involved in the scholarship decision-making process) is that past
recipients often continue to out-perform others in terms of the
criteria in subsequent years. What hasn’t been commented on is why
this is so?
If we believe that an attendee to Wikimania benefits in terms of
learning new skills, hearing new ideas, making new contacts, then
we should hardly be surprised if an attendee is then in a position
to “grow” as a Wikimedian and hence be more able to “out-compete”
others who didn’t have the benefit of attending. (And If we don’t
believe that attendees benefit or grow from Wikimania attendance,
then we should stop running Wikimania). Also the scholarship
recipient has an expectation to share with their community what
they have learned, even that process of sharing adds to their list
of activities that they can use as evidence as subsequent
scholarship applications.
Aside. If you have read the book Freakonomics or followed their
blog, you will be aware
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics>
of their study of how professional footballers tend to have their
birthdays clustered in a few months of the year and how this
phenomenon has its roots in spotting football talent in very young
players and then training them. Because junior sport is usually
based around age limits with a specific cut-off day, the children
who just exceed the age limit by a month or two will usually be
less physically developed than those who exceed the age limit by
10 or 11 months. Thus, the older children in the cohort are more
likely to be selected for the team and receive coaching. Next year
(still with a relative age developmental advantage AND with one
year of extra coaching) these older children in the cohort are
again appear the most able and again selected for the team (giving
them yet another year of coaching benefit over those not
selected). This cycle repeats throughout their childhood ensuring
the older ones within the “age year” are disproportionate
represented in both junior sport and then into college and
professional sport, giving rise to the observed clustering of
birthdays in professional footballers.
This is exactly the same phenomenon as we are seeing with
Wikimania scholarships.
How can the playing field of Wikimania scholarships be made a
little fairer? I don’t think the answer lies in deducting some
points from those who have had a scholarship before. I think the
solution lies in having two streams of scholarships, one for the
first timers who compete among themselves on criteria that
assesses their **potential** to “grow” through the Wikimania
experience and a second set of scholarships for those who are
applying to come for a second/third/… time with criteria more
appropriate to that group, how much did they “grow” and how much
did they “share” relative to the number of Wikimania opportunities
they have had (note one might also want to include attendance at
Wikimedia Conference and other similar movement events in this
regard)?
Note in both streams it is still possible to include factors like
the Global North/South issue, minority groups, etc in the criteria
as consistent with the movement’s strategic goals. The key
difference is whether you are assessing only potential for growth
from attending for the first-timers as opposed to observed growth
from past attending and likely potential for further growth from
additional attendance for the repeaters.
If that approach is taken, then the only question that remains is
the relative number of scholarships (or amount of funds) available
in each of the two streams. Obviously there’s a range of
possibilities, but I would be tempted to operate on a simple
pro-rata principle at least in the first year of operation. After
the weeding out of the ineligible or people who show poorly
against the criteria (however many phases there are to do that),
look at the size of the two remaining groups and go pro-rata. That
is, if after the preliminary cull(s), there are 200 potential
first-timers and 100 potential repeaters, then allocated twice as
many scholarship (or twice as much funding) to the first-time
group as to the repeater group. If that does not seem to produce a
good mix of attendees, then tweak it whichever way seems
appropriate the next year.
My key point is to stop comparing a basket of mixed apples and
oranges and start comparing apples with apples and oranges with
oranges. That should give you mix of the best apples and the best
oranges.
Kerry
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